The present invention relates generally to pants-type wearing articles such as disposable pants-type diapers and training pants and particularly to such wearing articles having front and rear waist regions fastened together by means of detachable and refastenable means.
There have already been proposed various wearing articles of pants-type each having front and rear waist regions fastened together by means of detachable and refastenable fastener means. For example, Publication of EP 1 523 968 A1 (REFERENCE) discloses fastener means used for such wearing article. According to the disclosure thereof, a sheet strip is folded in a Z-shape and an inverted Z-shape and a top section of Z-shape is permanently bonded to an inner surface of one of the front and rear waist regions and a loop element of a mechanical fastener is attached to a bottom section of Z-shape so that the loop element is engaged with a hook element attached to an inner surface of the other waist region. The top section and the bottom section are connected by an intermediate section. The top section and the intermediate section respectively have surfaces opposed to and permanently bonded to each other.
The fastener means used in the known wearing article as has been described above is attached to an inner surface of the wearing article and necessarily it is preferred to use a soft and comfortable material for the sheet strip. On the other hand, it is inevitable that a tension in a circumferential direction is exerted on the fastener means as the sheet strip folded in a Z-shape is unfolded so that the bottom section and the intermediate section are developed in a straight line when the wearing article is actually put on the wearer's body. Such tension is exerted primarily on a starting point of a bonding zone between the top section and the intermediate section. Thus a sufficiently high strength against such tension is required for the intermediate section. However, the inventors have found that it is not easy to obtain the sheet strip which provides for such high strength and simultaneously provides for a soft and comfortable touch since sheet materials providing the soft and comfortable touch often has not a high strength.